It’s hard to hide right now.

Although there is less access to each other, in a sense we have a different presence in the world than maybe we did before. I know that for myself, there is a sense of beeing seen in a different way than before. The computer screen is a showcase I never imagined for myself, and probably it wasn’t one that many of us envisioned.

There is a different complexity to our engagements now. The intuitive senses we utilize in our everyday face to face interactions now have glass between. The nuances are harder to spot. Tones and phrases, although easier in some ways than the written word, still have to travel different digital pathways to reach from mouth to ear.

And we are seen more. Whether it be the self-consciousness of seeing your face in a digital meeting, worrying about lighting or camera angle, shiny foreheads and that extra 10 pounds. We see ourselves more than we used to and others see us more as well.

For clergy and teachers, this means you see yourself on screen in a way that might be new. You know more people are watching you and yet, you don’t know who they are and can’t feel their breath and reaction in a room.

I’ve been thrown into a place of heightened self-analysis. This is not introspection, that is a familiar place for me. No, this is the feeling of evaluation without relationship.

There are times in our lives where we are all evaluated. In my own context, it means end of year student evaluations, job evaluations, grading of my ordination work, and all those minor evaluations, real or perceived, about how I’m ‘doing’ in the midst of our societal reality.

The external evaluations and self evaluations mean that sometimes my head, and maybe yours, are filled with awareness of the product of who I am.

Am I what I produce?

And how is the production value right now?

Do I mesure up?

When it feels like you’re bouncing from performance to performance, evaluation to evaluation, it is hard to be grounded. Encouraging words don’t seem to stick and you’re juggling the suggestions and comments, positive or stretching.

Sometimes I feel like God is skimming the water beside me as I leap like a frog from teetering lilypad to lilypad.

Quiet places and spaces are few and far between when your head and your house are both full to bursting with rampant thoughts and energy.

Breaths are shallower and we just keep producing.

It would be nice to wrap up this thought process with a tidy bow. The head knows the need for silence and solitude, for rest and breath, but sometimes the fullness Holy Spirit peace feels skin rather than soul deep. The availability to be self aware in the midst of all the other interpretive and analytical voices…is hard.

Here’s what I know. It is hard right now. It is hard for the people who serve to serve when people are out of hugs reach. It is hard having people pointing to pieces of you when you are trying to keep all the pieces together.

It is hard to feel extra seen when the longing of our heart is to be heard.

Psalm 139 has been a long practice of prayerful self-examen for me. It’s a chance to go over my day and see where God was present with me. But as I read it in this time and place, it is a reminder of being known.

That past the screen, the performance, the production, the product of who we are, we are known by God.

Known without the editing and fading in and out to cover up the glitches and mistakes. Known without misinterpretation and checklists and online comments. Known for all our glorious imperfections and for the small heart’s cry that is drowned out by demands on our time and creativity.

It is the still small voice, the presence on whose right side I sit and move through my world. It is Christ within me, before me, around me, covering me with his hands. It is the deep breath of Spirit who reminds me that joy comes in the morning even as we wake with heaviness for a new day.

It is the certainty that despite what we might feel or hear or be able to experience right now, we are held. We are loved. We are enough and we haven’t even begun to see what God has in store as he transforms us to look more and more like Christ.

And you know what? Those of us who know and accept Christ, we are like him, more and more everyday. We are worth so much in our Father’s eyes because of who he created us to be and who we are formed daily to be.

Take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark a path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.

Hebrews 12-13 MSG.

We can stand with tired spirits and know that we are seen, known, and tended to. With everything swirling around and yet, feeling emptier than we wish, there is hope. We are strengthened and held by the one who knows us best and loves us most. Take heart.